Nhuala Baenhoof
Baenhoof is a female tauren protection warrior on Moon Guard. All art on this page is drawn by Baenhoof, and is not to be used elsewhere. ' ' =Appearance= (Taken directly from her MRP) Baen was a thick, wide, brick shithouse of a woman. Standing a below average height, the tauren was broad and muscular; built more like a strongman, hearty, healthy, and meaty rather than a toned bodybuilder. Exceptionally wide at the hip, her oft-plated thighs were thick as tree trunks, giving the tauren a very solid look. Were she armoured, she'd look nigh immovable: a titansteel wall of muscle, fur, and irritatingly cocky grins. Her looks weren't much; average on the best of days and plain on the rest. A jagged, wide scar mars her snout, and there were countless other scars on the tauren. She'd clearly been through the wringer. There wasn't a day that went by that the woman wasn't sporting some new bruise or scabbed-over wound. She wore no braids, her black mane being long and unbound, coarse and slightly wavy. A frontal section was tucked behind her upturned, pointed black horns and hung beside her bovine face. Around her thick neck, tied tightly on a leather thong, was a small wooden totem pendant. It was held on a strip of leather painted golden and adorned with a myriad of coloured beads and feathers. If one were close enough, she would smell faintly of sweet herbal smoke and sweat. =Personality= Baenhoof is, at first glance, a no-nonsense, impatient brute of a tauren. She speaks altogether too loudly, often talks over others and never hesitates to speak her mind in no more words than she has to. She is prone to scowls and glares, and one might feel like they are being judged when her eyes are upon them. Her orcish is crude at best, and she often appears standoffish or disapproving of most things. Any amount of time spent with the tauren in a calm setting, however, and this attitude will begin to fade. The walls come down, and underneath lies a shu'halo who takes great joy in hearty food, stout drink, long tales and friends. She is almost fanatically loyal to her loved ones, often coming off as something of an overprotective mother bear. Baen is, by her own admissions, not the smartest of warriors, though she has learned a smattering of wisdom over the years. =Childhood= Little Nhuala was born many years ago in springtime Southern Barrens, close to where modern Taurajo was. She was born slightly too early and was a very small calf. Many of the tribe's shaman predicted she would not survive long- the Barrens, with the centaur and quillboar attacks, were not a forgiving place. But survive little Nhuala did. Some say it was through sheer luck the tiny calf made it through the following winter. The girl was a literal runt. Small and with no strength to speak of, her only redeeming factor, it seemed, was her fiery will and a passion for the martial arts. She grew up contrary, bored, hotheaded. Upon coming of age, the crone shaman told her what her trial would be. She was sent to kill a centaur. Whether she lived or died, she would be an official, adult member of her tribe, and honoured as such. She left Warbringer mesa on a warm summer night, armed with only an axe and a waterskin. Baenhoof will not speak to this day on what happened that night. But the girl had changed for good. The hunts were what Baen reveled in- a test of strength, speed and wit against a beast much larger than herself. The runt slowly developed sinewy muscle, still leagues behind her peers. Baenhoof and Rodakar found themselves acquainted at one of many inter-tribe celebrations, two young teenagers. What began as ceaseless mocking from young Baenhoof at Rodakar's awkwardness at the spirit dance would soon grow into a steadfast friendship, and later, love. =Joining the Horde= The centaur attacks grew more frequent, more violent. The unexpected arrival of Thrall was a blessing...and an opportunity to get away from what Baenhoof thought as 'boring.' The Horde was glorious; it was glamorous. A chance to get out of the Barrens and be part of something bigger. Adventure. Almost literally dragging Rodakar with her, the tauren eagerly signed on with the Bloodhoof braves to form the Horde. She soon, however found herself in over her head as a simple grunt- the life of a soldier was different from that of a brave. The skinny, smallish tauren was mocked, especially by the orcs. She'd never make it past basic. Young Baenhoof bent herself to the task, rising to the challenge. Never quite on par with orcish berserkers for their demonic influence, Baenhoof nevertheless became adept with the axe, mace and sword. One particularily nasty skirmish against a band of warring kaldorei saw the entire chain of command above the tauren killed off, one by one, until commanding rank fell upon her plated shoulders. Once again, Baenhoof surprisingly rose to the challenge, and although the mission objective was not completed, Baenhoof saw the night elf war party crippled, and was able to get the rest of the surviving Horde to safety. This act brought her into the eyes of the Kor'kron leaders, and she was brought under their gaze for closer inspection. Baenhoof was inducted as a probationary member a month later. =The Kor'kron= ((This has absolutely nothing to do with the Kor'kron Legion guild on Moon Guard. I nor Baenhoof have ever been a part of the guild- Baenhoof was part of a seperate unit of the Kor'kron.)) She was trained hard by a gruff and bitter orc, who's bark was more lenient than his bite. Brutally, quickly, her skill and muscle grew. Baen became a bonafide warrior, hardened and an efficient, well-oiled gear of the Horde's warmachine. She attributes much of her militaristic attitude to her training here. The runt of the tribe was now a bulky axe-wielding warrior, thick with muscle and once again bearing a cocky, crooked grin. Satisfied with her skill and finding no more challenge within the endless guard-work and the lull after the tent-city of Orgrimmar was secured in Durotar, Baenhoof was granted a discharge from the Kor'kron (some say it was simply because her commander wanted the tauren out of his thinning hair) and sent on her way with Rodakar. The bull, it seemed, was something of a prodigy among the shaman of Orgrimmar. He had been born gifted with a knack for the spiritual, and the elemental pacts came easily to him. Easiest of all fire. The pair sought out adventure and coin as mercenaries. =Mercenary Work= Work was somewhat scarce in Orgrimmar for mercenary types- the Horde warmachine was at work building their stronghold and defending the surrounding lands. Baenhoof wasted time in bars, squirreling what little pay she had kept from the Kor'kron away on drink and gambling; she was susceptible to vice, as so many young warriors are. The two, finding no work in Orgrimmar, decided to spend the last of their coin to secure passage on a zeppelin bound for the Eastern Kingdoms. Hopefully their luck would take a turn for the better there. After a few days, they had found work as mercenaries in exploratory expedition to what was whispered in legend as the Blackrock Mountain. There was said to be treasure within the fiery caverns below. The expedition head called it the Molten Core. It was a long, long trip- their kodos were repurposed from beasts of war to pack animals, and the hearty tauren walked the majority of the trip. The Kor'kron had seperated Baenhoof from Rodakar, and they had hardly seen each other during. The journey to the middle of the Eastern Kingdoms, however, forced the two tauren closer and closer together. What had been friendly smiles years earlier now turned to appraising looks, playful grins. They spent passionate night after night under the starry skies and pine forests, and what had once been childhood friendship now turned to love. The two wove a small braid into the other's mane- a promise they would be lifebound in the ancestral grasslands of the Barrens when they returned from the job. Weeks later, they arrived at Blackrock Mountain, it's charred spires reaching into the smokey red sky above. It was a sky Baenhoof and Rodakar would come to miss. The caverns, the party soon discovered, were indeed filled with treasure, but also the worrisome stirrings of something far older than money. They became lost within the sweltering hot, twisting labyrinthe that was the Core, beset on all edges by powerful and ancient horrors. The name Ragnaros was whispered on the heated air, and Rodakar found himself in the throes of nightmares when he did manage to sleep. Something called to him in that dark, fiery place under the mountain. The whispers turned to shouted warnings from beasts that had never seen daylight, and the legend of the Firelord became real in one horrific instant. The rock-encrusted lava below exploded as a being of monolithic size and power burst up from the ground, roaring his fury, stalactites shuddering from the impossibly high cavern ceiling and crashing into the molten rock pools below. The expedition scattered. No treasure was worth this. Baenhoof ran for cover, panicked and afraid and bellowing for her mate to follow her. Diving behind a rocky outcropping, she panted, attempting to still her wildly beating heart, and looked startled when she discovered Rodakar was not by her side. The bull was frozen, his eyes locked on the fiery behemoth before them, it's hammer whirling in the air before slamming with impossible force to the fragmented ground, crushing some poor soul underneath. Baen picked up her axe again, frenzied determination fueling an otherwise fear-petrified body, and sprinted back toward her mate. Too late, she saw Ragnaros turn as Rodakar's thick fingers wove an archaic patterns. Too late the bull realized the folly of his actions and turned to run. Baen's world slowed to a jarring halt as Ragnaros' massive fist raised above his head and sped down toward the male tauren. Her limbs were lead, refusing to move fast enough. The oppressive heat in the air choked her lungs. A smile shared in the Barrens, a kiss under a foreign night sky. Baen's world was ripped in two. Baen let a roar of grief and rage free from her chest, stricken with pain. Roda's eyes met hers a split second before he was incinerated into nothing under the elemental general's colossal fist. Baen didn't care anymore. She didn't care if she lived or died, and she would see that thing brought to ruin before she fell. She let white hot fury take over. Red seeped into her vision, heart pumping like thunder with adrenaline. Someone would pay. Worlds would bleed dry for what had happened here. She charged at the whirling inferno at Ragnaros' base, mane whipping wildly in the spark and smoke-ridden wind, disappearing within it. She let it overtake her lungs, stinging at her eyes. She couldn't breathe. She would die, but she would make him pay first... And then the world went black. Silent. =Booty Bay Pitfighting= Somehow, weeks later, Baenhoof found herself wandering the wilds of the Eastern Kingdoms alone. Birds screeched overhead, the jungle closed in all around her. Food was like ash, water was thick and viscous. Sleep held only nightmares. Angry and once again returning to her self-destructive habits, she found herself in Booty Bay, drinking and gambling, getting into fistfights at the local bars. Baen was a broken husk, simply going through the motions. Her heart still beat, her lungs still took in air, but she was dead. After a particularily brutal brawl, she was approached by a goblin, propositioned for work as a contender in an underground pitfighting circle. With nothing to lose and with the acceptance that it would lead to her death, she accepted, and began the next day. The fights were bloody, brutal, often fatal. Unarmoured, unarmed, Baenhoof put her superior size and weight to use, quickly becoming renowned as something of a beast. She flew into bloodrages almost nightly, sometimes killing her opponents before she could be pulled off and forcibly calmed. It was here that Baenhoof earned the majority of her scars and the entirety of her tenacity, her unwillingness to fall. She could take a hit and keep taking them, outlasting her enemies for as long as it took to win. With her jaw dislocated, bloody spittle flying from her mouth, the tauren had a sort of revelation. The crowd fell silent around her, and she stood alone in the eye of the storm. Clarity at last. She looked down at the jungle troll in front of her, his eyes bloodshot and filled with desperate hatred. She felt no pain, no rage, only numb understanding. The troll ducked in front of her, his sharp-knuckled fist coming up for an uppercut. She would not be fast enough to dodge, but she could avert it. A nudge of her elbow sent the fist flying wide of her chin, and a thick, powerful thigh raised, her knee driving hard and fast into his diaphragm, her meaty palms on his bone-pierced shoulders. The troll was on his back, the tauren's knees crushing his biceps into the bloodied dirt. He was introduced as a primalist. There was only one way to stop a primal once he had been fully allowed to succumb to the bloodlust. Her hands dug under his skull, the heel of her palm at his protdruding chin. As his tusk bit into her thigh, Baenhoof jerked his head too far in an awkward direction. A snap was heard, and the tusk in her thigh ripped a fleshy chunk out. She didn't even feel it. Minutes later, she was being roared at by a goblin with a cigar between his yellowed teeth, the dull-thud of her thigh and jaw clouding her vision. Hours later, a roughly patched-up Baenhoof was buying passage on a ship to Kalimdor. =From Fire Reborn= Baenhoof, much the same bitter, scarred warrior she is now, lived as a mercenary and a nomad. Rodakar's death had shaken her to her core, and she vowed to dedicate the rest of her life to the shield. No one else under her watchful eye would suffer the same fate. Her jaded eyes now saw past the supposed glory of the Horde, becoming disillusioned with the idea. Baen returned, somewhat, to her shu'halo roots, forgetting the valourous bloodlust her orcish companions felt. There was no valour in bloodshed. With few posessions besides her armour and kit, she traveled wherever her work took her, rarely staying longer than a few days in one place. Her nightmares were still haunted by the screams and yells of her mate in his death throes, she still saw the flames when she drifted off to sleep. The nightmares came infrequently, sometimes only briefly...but still they came. She was lost, alone. A small ship adrift in an agitated sea. News came and went that a figure of evil rose to power on another world. Baenhoof could scarcely care about the one she lived on. She worked escorting caravans, guarding shipments, people, places. Anything to keep food on the table. Four years had passed since that fateful night in that hellish asshole of Azeroth. Baenhoof, after a night of smoking and drinking, dreamed. Not of death or fire, but of life and love. The dream came every night for months, until a location appeared in the dream. The Blackrock Mountain. Tauren do not dream and think nothing of it as humans do. Dreams are gifts, meant to guide and inspire. They are given by the Ancestors, and no dream is ever to be taken lightly. For whatever reason, Baenhoof knew she must return to the mountain. And so it was for that reason that the black-furred tauren found herself, weeks later, standing over the fiery chasm that was the center of the mountain. A passage lead around the inside, paved and cobbled by the dwarves centuries before. Her eyes were hard, distrustful as she peered down into the lava below. Cinder-laden air whipped her mane about and threatened to bully her solid form off the edge. "A sign." She whispered. "Give me anything. Why was I guided here?" "Nhuala?" She turned, only to find herself face to face with a face that haunted her nights. His fur was no longer black like hers, but greyish, as if coated with ash. Honey-brown eyes locked onto hers, fear and joy swirling within them. He held out thick arms toward her. "I'm sorry. I did all I could." His voice was deep, sweet. Gentle. Rodakar stood before her, his armour almost like the molten rock itself, His chest bare, except a large runic mark over his heart. It was like fire itself, though slowly fading to simple yet horrific, twisted scar tissue. The bull had been changed. The leather thong around his neck, always having borne a sacred shamanistic symbol known as the ankh was now bare. It held nothing. Baen simply wept and went to him, unsure if it was reality or if she was hallucinating. Had she finally lost her mind? It was many hours before they seperated again, and Rodakar explained everything. He had indeed been killed. Shaman, he had said, return to the ancestors when they die, just as all tauren do. It seemed, however, that the Firelord had other plans for his spirit. He was transported to the elemental plane of fire, and held captive there. He had made a bargain, he said. Always finding the element of fire came naturally to him, he was to return to Azeroth as a scion of fire. Why he was not simply turned into an elemental, the tauren said, he wasn't sure. Rodakar suspected there were other powers at play. Why he had been chosen, why he had not simply died as all others had, he did not know. Baen decided not to question it. She didn't have the heart to question it. It was miraculous, but Rodakar had returned to her from the dead, braving fire and darkness to do it. ((An OOC note here: Yes, I am aware that resurrection of a character is an incredibly cliched, campy thing to do. However, if a resurrection was to take place, I feel this would be the best way to do it. It is possible for skilled shaman who have created a personal ankh through ceremony and lifelong dedication to, under extreme circumstances, possibly be taken to an elemental plane instead of the spirit world upon death. In extremely rare cases, it might be possible for the shaman to escape from that plane. Reincarnate has a 30 minute cooldown ingame, but thats stupid for RP purposes. I would reason that in RP, a powerful shaman with an ankh might have to wait years to return, and then they might not have a body to do so. So what to do about a body? Some preliminary knowledge- all shaman know of and revere the four elements of earth, fire, water and air. In WoW lore, there is proof of a fifth element, though most shaman either do not know about this element or dismiss it as myth. This fifth element is the element of life. Rodakar, at his time of death, was an enhancement shaman with an affinity for fire, which is why he ended up on the plane of fire. It may have been Ragnaros that allowed Rodakar to come back to Azeroth as his scion, but it was the element of life that recreated his body. So the bull has pacts with both elements. Stupid? Maybe, but again, if a character rez was going to happen, thats the best way I feel it could have happened.)) =Chill of the Throne and the Stormrock= Baenhoof and Rodakar, knowing that Azeroth as a whole was threatened, traveled to Northrend and signed on with the Argent Crusade to fight back the Scourge. They never imagined the horrors they would come face to face with- monsters that had been stitched together, ghouls, twitching wrecks called geists with clawed needle-like fingers that could rip through armour like butter. Gargoyles that would swoop down into trenches and fly off with unlucky warriors only to drop them to their deaths. Val'kyr that would turn fallen friends against their former allies, shambling vry'kul and waves upon waves upon waves of half-rotted skeletons, including nameless horrors Baenhoof had only heard stories about. Faceless wretches and spider-like monstrosities. Baenhoof saw friends and allies literally torn apart. She had forgotten how gruesome war could be, but a war on the unliving was gruesome beyond anything she'd ever seen. Some went mad, some lost all hope. Some, like herself, pushed on to the icy citadel. They breached the doors. Baenhoof and Rodakar helped to hold off the legion of undead that swarmed toward them on all sides while Tirion and a small group of warriors made for the upper reaches of the citadel, fighting for their lives. When the Lich King fell, everyone knew it. The furor of the unliving wavered. They simply stood there, unaware of their surroundings. The day had been won. With a renewed passion for life, Baenhoof sought out something she had not felt in many years- the warmth of a family. Thinking a clan of shaman might help to calm a heart full of bloodlust and rage, she spoke with an orc woman named Erier. Weeks later, she bore a tabard bearing the marks of a storm, and a totem pendant around her neck. She was a Stormrock. Baenhoof quickly rose in the ranks of the Stormrock. Her militaristic training and lawful attitude and the opening in the ranks for a warlord and enforcer saw the tauren into those positions. Erier left to join the Earthen Ring for a time, and an upheaval in the clan saw her mate, Rodakar, as the new Chieftain. =The Cataclysm & Present Day= Distrust spread in the clan- Garroshes' murder of Cairne meant a seed was planted between the orcs and tauren, and Vol'jin's attitude toward the young Warchief meant the same between the orcs and trolls. Kalimdor is beset on all sides by the Alliance, and the tauren's ancestral home is threatened. The elements are angry and uneasy, and the boundaries between Azeroth and the elemental prisons are fading. The Stormrocks are fighting not only for their way of life, but also for peace and for Azeroth as a whole. There is so much to be lost. Baen still serves as the Stormrock Warlord. She's spent most of her time lately in the Twilight Highlands, assisting in taking down the Twilight's Hammer within the Bastion of Twilight. When Cho'gall fell, the tauren returned to her tent on a high-up mesa in the Barrens. Upon hearing the founder of the Clan's daughter had been found in Garadar, Baenhoof volunteered to help rear the child. Little Tali'naka, orphaned daughter of Iriako Stormrock and his mate Alisanoka, is an orcish girl of about three. She stays with Baenhoof and her mate. Baenhoof was among the first to witness the horror and destruction of Camp Taurajo in the Southern Barrens. She witnessed firsthand the burned husks of former friends and allies. The tauren had not felt such rage since her pit fighting days. When once she thought of the Alliance as good-natured people under a different banner, Baen now sees them for what they really are. Thieves, greedy and bloodthirsty murderers who have no qualms with taking innocent lives. She has renounced her neutrality and now seeks bloody revenge on those who would destroy her ancestral home. Now that the Firelands have been opened, Baen has left Tali'naka in the capable arms of a young Stormrock sunwalker. She and Rodakar intend to face Ragnaros head-on and exact their long-awaited revenge for that fateful night so many years ago. =FOR FUNSIES!= This section is full of stupid shit like character soundtracks and random things. Not to be taken seriously. Trivia! *Baenhoof started life about 7 years ago as a character in a Warcraft 3 Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Baenhoof was a male tauren barbarian. *Baenhoof also started life ingame as a male. She was sexchanged quite literally the second the re-characterization option was made available. *Much of the inspiration for Baen's accent is taken from Firefly, because it is awesome. Realistically, it borrows heavily from Western movies. *Baenhoof has a secret weakness for children and sweets. *She has befriended a very small armadillo, affectionately/irritatedly referred to as 'Diller. *Baen often smokes from a pipe gifted to her by Erier on her 70th birthday. The smoke is somewhat fragrant and sweet-smelling, as it is not tobacco, but rather a relaxing herb mixture. *She will also smoke cigars. *Rides a protodrake Kroha and a kodo named Bramu. Relevant Tropes *Boisterous Bruiser *Mama Bear *I Call It Vera *Combat Pragmatist *Made of Iron *Neutral No Longer *I Did What I Had to Do *My Greatest Failure (Work in progress!) Category:Horde Warrior Category:Tauren Category:Horde